Hydrofluoroethers (HFEs) are a class of commercially valuable chemical compounds. In a number of applications hydrofluoroethers have been found to be useful replacements for chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), the use of which is presently disfavored and regulated due to the adverse effects CFCs are believed to have on the environment. Hydrofluoroethers have been found to be less harmful to the earth's ozone layer than CFCs because, for one thing, they are typically more easily degraded within the earth's atmosphere (they exhibit a low "ozone depletion potential").
Hydrofluoroethers have been found to be useful in a number of important industrial and commercial applications. They can be used alone or in combination with other chemicals, e.g., in applications where CFCs have been used in the past (as a solvent, a cleaning fluid, a polymerization medium, a fire extinguishing medium, a heat transfer agent, a refrigerant, or as a metal working agent in the cutting or forming of metals). With increasing demand for hydrofluoroethers, there exists an ongoing need to identify efficient methods for their production.
Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which include a very wide variety of organic compounds composed of hydrogen, fluorine, and carbon, are also important industrial and commercial chemicals for use in applications such as in fire-fighting compositions, gaseous dielectrics, sterilant carriers, refrigerants, heat transfer fluids, cleaning fluids, and solvent applications, etc. As a single example, HFC-236 (C.sub.3 F.sub.6 H.sub.2) is useful as a refrigerant as a replacement for CFC- 11, CFC- 113 and CFC-114. There is continuing need for efficient methods of preparing a variety of different commercially useful HFCs such as HFC-236.